Welcome to Crooked Oak Public schools and thank you for visiting our web site.

What is a RUF-NEX? By definition a RUF-NEX exudes passion, hard work, and talent. In true RUF-NEX fashion, Crooked Oak Schools is exceptional because of its people. The teachers, staff, and alumni are some of the most talented and compassionate people in the teaching industry. Our staff is dedicated to fostering the best in students and seeing that they are nurtured while in our care.

As I am nearing my 20th year in education, I am reminiscent of why I wanted to be a teacher: I could make a difference as my teachers did for me. I have served as high school English teacher, bus driver, alternative education teacher, assistant principal, principal, and superintendent. Although my titles have changed through the years, my mission of making a positive difference for kids has remained the same. I am approaching my 6th year serving as Superintendent of Crooked Oak School. Early in my tenure, I developed a simple plan to improve Crooked Oak Schools. I am still committed to the underlying principles of that plan. Our plan focuses on 5 parts:

All team members building positive relationships with the students.

Embedding academic language in all we do.

Develop writing skills with students by writing a minimum of one essay in each and every class.

Promoting and celebrating reading for all students.

Employing higher level questioning techniques in the class rooms.

Crooked Oak has yet to achieve its goals but we are working hard to be the top school in Oklahoma. Go RUF-NEX!

Crooked Oak Public Schools' new high school building with its "oil derrick" rising above the school. [By Mary Phillips, for The Oklahoman]

The northwest corner of SE 15 and Eastern Avenue has been the home of Crooked Oak Public Schools for more than 100 years. Change has come to the corner as old buildings have disappeared and new buildings have taken their places.

Recently, a new high school building has risen in the place of the old one, and the exterior appropriately bears the likeness of an oil derrick.

Crooked Oak Public Schools owes much of its start to the oil field industry. It's no surprise that the school's mascot is a roughneck, the toughest of drilling rig workers, and the students are known as the Ruf-Nex.

According to the district's official website at www.crookedoak.org, Crooked Oak is an independent school district serving about 1,200 pre-K through 12th-grade students.

In 1893, before Oklahoma was a state, Crooked Oak Schools was established to educate the local farm children in this area of Crooked Oak Creek, according to the website. In the early part of the 1900s, Crooked Oak School was moved to its current location.

On March 12, 1939, The Oklahoman published an article that included a bit of information about Crooked Oak Schools. Hall School, now Lee, was "one of the four first schools built in Oklahoma with public funds," according to the article.

"The others were Trosper school, now Crooked Oak; Lightnin' Crick ... spelled of course Lightning Creek ... now Prairie Queen, and Bodine, now Valley Brook. All four were in Oklahoma County and all but Prairie Queen and Crooked Oak are now city schools," in the Oklahoma City School District, according to the article.

A story from The Oklahoman on Sept. 13, 1985, provided a little more Crooked Oak history:

School historians say the school dates from 1893, when a half-acre was purchased for $30 from Ben J. Thiemer for construction of a one-room school. A crooked oak tree stood on the land so the school board picked that for the school name.

In 1934, the school had only eight grades. Starting in 1935, one grade was added each year. The first class to graduate from a full 12 years at Crooked Oak was in 1938.

Crooked Oak students were predominantly oil field kids. Most of their parents worked for Phillips or Cities Service, (former student Frances) Hutton said.

"We lived in camps. We lived, fought and went to school together," she said. "There was a camaraderie here that was like an extension of your family.

"'School teams were called the Roughnecks, and they had to be tough," she said."

While Oklahoma City's panorama of oil derricks has disappeared, pump jacks are still pumping and the Crooked Oak Independent School District continues to thrive on the corner.

If you would like to contact Mary Phillips about The Archivist, email her at gapnmary@gmail.com.